Collective Compassion in a Post-Pandemic World
George Clark / March 19 / Connectedness
COVID-19 is one of those topics around which circles a vast, seemingly endless cyclone of negativity. From the daily dose of death statistics on the news to our hourly struggles to maintain motivation, to managing mental health amidst all the general dread, we have a lot of very valid reasons to be struggling at the moment. Amidst all of the personal (and indeed cultural) issues which the pandemic has in many ways exaggerated, there has at least been a shift, broadly speaking, towards a more compassionate way of living with ourselves. Whether that takes the form of engaging more fully with hobbies or taking the afternoon out for a long walk because you have simply had enough, more than ever we have been asked to consider what exactly it means to be happy within ourselves.
For the majority of us around the world, pandemic life is unfortunately still a persistent reality, one which we have had to adjust to. And one of the positive things I have noticed over the last year or so is an encouraging increase in conversations about taking care of ourselves. When trying to help a friend suffering with anxiety or depression for example, whatever the specifics of the situation, my natural instinct is always to remind them as a caveat that: “there’s a pandemic going on, it’s okay not to be feeling your best!” Whatever our financial situation, experience of mental health pre-pandemic, race, age, sex, class, sexuality, gender identity etc., we can all acknowledge that it is okay to be suffering during a pandemic. And that acknowledgement is a good thing. However, this has got me thinking: what happens to this increased depth of focus on the damages external reality has on our mental health when COVID-19 no longer organises our lives? Especially in light of the gradual lifting of restrictions (at least in the UK), it seems an appropriate time to consider the ramifications of this.
The Effect of External Circumstances
One of the cornerstones of our response to the pandemic surely has to be that there is nothing objectively good about it. Though the virus itself is amoral, the effects it has on our lives are of course, overwhelmingly negative. As a result, we are able to collectively “hate” the virus and mourn the lives that we had before: impromptu trips to the pub or to coffee shops, hugging our friends, even going to a gym, which has become a fantasy of mine I never thought I would have. So we have a binary: humanity on one side, the virus on the other. It is an easy binary to sink into because there is very little plausible reason (if any) to take issue with it. COVID-19 clearly and visibly impacts all of our lives in some capacity. As a result, we have all become very aware of the way in which external circumstance has a tangible effect on how we manage and experience our internal (subjective) emotions.
This is important; it is not a focus we should allow to fade into the past when our current way of living returns to some version of normality. Not only that it is always okay to not be feeling okay, but that this is the case because things beyond our control are still going to have an effect. Specifically, I am referring to existing social issues which must remain in focus: racism, sexism, queerphobia, classism and ableism. These issues perhaps feel more difficult to tackle because they do not deal with a wholly evil “out there” force impacting everyone negatively. Rather, they are issues that cause fractures and divisions within human society and can result in the licensing of severe physical and or psychological damage, towards both humans and nonhumans. Even when the binary of humanity against the virus is lost, there will continue to be various injuries that culture inflicts on us, to greater and lesser degrees, which it is okay to be upset by and with. Ultimately, we need to trust and recognise that not all of the suffering we feel is our fault, even after the pandemic.
Going Forward, Staying Compassionate
When this consideration is carried forward, alongside it follows a general re-orientation around how we as working subjects approach our lives. We should be working around our mental health, not fitting in mental health around our work. That’s the first step: to know that even when the pandemic is over, we still individually have reasons to be suffering and that that’s okay. Suffering is a part of life, which is not to romanticise or submit to it but rather to know it belongs to our experience and that it doesn’t last forever. The clear-cut effect of external public discourse on all of us will be gone but that’s not to say that external reality will not continue to impinge upon our daily mental lives.
As much as there have been positive conversations and stories which have come out of the pandemic, there have also been cases of immense suffering, both physical and mental. And because we all have a taste of how the pandemic might affect our health, we are easier able to empathise with these stories; it becomes less of a “leap”. This is why, when COVID-19 is eventually distilled into a collective traumatic memory, we must do our best to remember that there arestill just so many reasons and manifestations of the ways in which each and every person on our planet is suffering. The one thing I hope continues out of the pandemic is a greater impulse towards compassion, which is something we need to carry forward to continue addressing the ways in which our personal and cultural experiences can both enrich and disturb our lives. In short, we need to be kind.